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The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

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Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have constructed a theory of how government works from whole cloth having nothing whatsoever to do with reality. Limited government means what powers not explicitly granted to government belong to the people. This is to say government can only acquire new powers via legislation or amendment of the constitution it doesn't mean that they are for forbidden from acting beyond the most limited mandate you imagine. No…

28 USC 531, et seq. sets out the limited authority and mission of the FBI. Ensuring social media platforms adhere to their own policies is outside the scope. Government officials — at the federal level - have extremely well-defined scopes of authority. They have no general power to do things. If they exceed the scope, they are abusing the power given to them. A govt agency has no authority outside the scope of its en…

Can you give an example of where it has been found in a court of law that a government agency has exceeded its mandate and been ordered to alter their behavior entirely on that basis and not for instance because its actions violate someone's rights or harm their interests?

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#442

I have to say I’m astonished at the casual dismissal of the blatant lies of the previous Twitter regime, their clear election manipulation, and the governments involvement in drawing attention to utterly trivial social media activity. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks the governments attention on small, inconsequential accounts was all a backstop to justify the narratives they were feeding to the press about Russi…

> their clear election manipulation I’m confused here. I only see Republicans trying to manipulate elections with unsubstantiated voter fraud claims.

I guess you haven't been following?

FBI gets Hunter laptop Dec 2019, knows it's not a forgery. FBI proceeds to warn social media companies about "Russian disinformation campaigns" about a month or two before election. NY Post does story on Hunter laptop (which includes business dealing with Ukraine). "Former" intelligence agents go on media to say "this has all the markings of a disinformation campaign" (which they know 100% is a lie).

Social media proceeds to ban a 100% factual story, about a presidential candidate weeks for an election.

You don't see the issue?

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#443
post #66

[flagged]

> Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. That's the Constitutional definition of treason in the United States. Who's levying war against the United States here?

The 'intelligence agancies'? Like in cases of a coup, when an institution that is part of the governmental body tries to take over the state by force. It seems pretty similar, just that the means are more peaceful.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#444
post #122
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand the FBI knew that the Hunter Biden story was real but encouraged everybody else to believe that it was a Russian hoax. Doesn't this count as lying? It's not just lying, it's explicit disinformation with an electoral goal. This went so far that major web platforms blocked all forms of disagreement and the public dismissed it as a conspiracy theory. It was highly effective. I hate Trump's guts bu…

Can you cite any of those claims? What’s been established in public and e.g. Zuckerberg’s interview was that they warned companies to be wary about another repeat of election interference, but nobody is saying that the FBI told them to kill this story. > This went so far that major web platforms blocked all forms of disagreement and the public dismissed it as a conspiracy theory. It was highly effective This is imagi…

The FBI seized the laptop in December 2021, nearly an year before it was revealed. They knew it was real but they strongly encouraged media companies to "expect a leak". As a consequence of this the story was strongly suppressed and the general public came to believe the opposite of the truth.

It's true that the FBI didn't force companies to kill the story but the story was still killed as a result of FBI actions. Are you OK with the FBI misleading the public? Or are you going to argue that they are incompetent and genuinely believed that it was a Russian operation?

There is no proof that Joe Biden himself acted improperly but Hunter Biden did receive large consulting fees for performing no work - he spent his time on cocaine and hookers instead. This strongly indicates that he was hired for political connections.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WSJ owner also owns Fox and NYPost. So, definitely, traceably, conspicuously right wing.

Except if you actually compare the three, you'll see that the WSJ is quite a bit to the left on its news pages, and somewhat left of them on its editorial pages. The quality is a lot higher, of course.

Wow, I actually unsubscribed from the WSJ because their opinion sections were so insane.

Mind you, I felt the same way about the NYT and WaPo.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#446
post #444
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite any of those claims? What’s been established in public and e.g. Zuckerberg’s interview was that they warned companies to be wary about another repeat of election interference, but nobody is saying that the FBI told them to kill this story. > This went so far that major web platforms blocked all forms of disagreement and the public dismissed it as a conspiracy theory. It was highly effective This is imagi…

The FBI seized the laptop in December 2021, nearly an year before it was revealed. They knew it was real but they strongly encouraged media companies to "expect a leak". As a consequence of this the story was strongly suppressed and the general public came to believe the opposite of the truth. It's true that the FBI didn't force companies to kill the story but the story was still killed as a result of FBI actions. Ar…

The story wasn’t killed, it was front page news. The reasons it dropped off were accurate: Giuliani’s sloppy handling tainted the evidence and there wasn’t much there relevant to Joe Biden. Everyone already knew Hunter Biden had a drug problem but he wasn’t the candidate and there was no reason to think his father was going to pull a Trump and install him in the government.

Two years later, that’s held up well - despite a lot of attention, there hasn’t been anything of interest to come out of the dump, which is why Republicans have shifted to claiming the problem was some kind of coverup despite it not being covered up.

> Are you OK with the FBI misleading the public? Or are you going to argue that they are incompetent and genuinely believed that it was a Russian operation?

This is key to your misunderstanding: the FBI was on watch for a repeat of the election interference we saw in 2016. They didn’t mislead the public, so it’s not a question of anyone being okay with it because that never happened.

> This strongly indicates that he was hired for political connections.

Yes, and lots of rich kids fail up. The question is whether his father actually did something improper to help him. For example, did Joe Biden actually pull strings for Hunter’s clients or did he refuse to violate the ethical rules? If you want this to be a scandal that’s the kind of thing you need to show.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if you actually compare the three, you'll see that the WSJ is quite a bit to the left on its news pages, and somewhat left of them on its editorial pages. The quality is a lot higher, of course.

Wow, I actually unsubscribed from the WSJ because their opinion sections were so insane. Mind you, I felt the same way about the NYT and WaPo.

NYT was a huge" booster for invading Iraq. Tom Friedman, particularly: never forget. Anybody who thought NYT was ever "liberal" wasn't paying attention.

WSJ editorials were loony-toons wacky even before Rupert Murdoch bought it.

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#448
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DC’s residents skew Democratic for a reason: having such a large black population means that they don’t trust the party which has such a questionable racial history Hmmm.

Continue that thought? I have a hunch that you’re about to repeat the usual conservative “the Democrats were the party of slavery” claim which assumes the reader is unaware of the Southern Strategy half a century ago[1], but I’d love to be wrong in that pessimism. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

Ahh yes, the southern strategy also know as "to win elections in the south we should do what the Democrats are doing"

Go ahead and tell me when the parties "switched": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_senato...

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#449
post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their clear election manipulation I’m confused here. I only see Republicans trying to manipulate elections with unsubstantiated voter fraud claims.

I guess you haven't been following? FBI gets Hunter laptop Dec 2019, knows it's not a forgery. FBI proceeds to warn social media companies about "Russian disinformation campaigns" about a month or two before election. NY Post does story on Hunter laptop (which includes business dealing with Ukraine). "Former" intelligence agents go on media to say "this has all the markings of a disinformation campaign" (which they k…

How does a stolen laptop of Biden’s son change the election?

Re: The FBI was the primary link between the intelligence community and Twitter

#450
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continue that thought? I have a hunch that you’re about to repeat the usual conservative “the Democrats were the party of slavery” claim which assumes the reader is unaware of the Southern Strategy half a century ago[1], but I’d love to be wrong in that pessimism. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

Ahh yes, the southern strategy also know as "to win elections in the south we should do what the Democrats are doing" Go ahead and tell me when the parties "switched": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_senato...

I would suggest reading the link I gave you previously, which covers the evolution in detail.
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